You’ve hit a major milestone as a computer scientist and are becoming a capable programmer. You now know how to solve problems, write algorithms, and analyze solutions; and you have a wealth of tools (like data structures) at your disposal. You may now be ready for an internship or (possibly) an entry-level software engineering job. But can you land the internship/job? It depends in part on how well you can solve new technical problems and communicate during interviews. How can you get better at this? Practice!
With the support of Google’s recruiting and engineering teams we’ve provided tips, examples, and practice opportunities in this course that may help you with a number of tech companies. We’ll assist you to organize into teams to practice. Lastly, we’ll give you basic job search advice, and tips for succeeding once you’re on the job.

RA

awesome course! having had so many bad interviews lately, this course points out all the mistakes you can make in an interview and how to improve and practice your skills.

HB

Nov 30, 2016

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

Great course. For me, having no knowledge of what to expect in technical interviews before taking this course, I found it really helpful for preparing for interviews

De la lección

Welcome & What is a Software Engineering Interview?

Welcome to our course on effectively communicating your technical abilities. This course focuses on landing a technical job and excelling in a technical role. To succeed in job interviews, you’ll need to be able to confidently articulate your ability to solve challenging problems and come up with new solutions under potentially stressful conditions. After getting a technical job, the role of communication increases even more. You’ll need to work with other members of the team, communicate technical challenges and successes, and potentially sell the value of your work to those outside the company. Our goal is that by the end of this course each and every one of you understands the importance of technical communication, and has received constructive feedback on areas of potential improvement. In achieving this goal you will also learn about algorithmic thinking on the fly, how to evaluate a good interview answer to a difficult technical problem, and how “soft” skills impact interview outcomes. In this module, we’ll begin to see what a technical interview looks like, from the perspective of a major tech company. We’ll then focus on how to best get the interview in the first place. If you're not in the job market right now, you might want to skim the videos in this module and skip ahead to the Resume Critique (for insights about how to present yourself in writing) or the Introductions assignment (on effectively presenting yourself in person).

Impartido por:

Mia Minnes

Assistant Teaching Professor

Leo Porter

Associate Teaching Professor

Christine Alvarado

Associate Teaching Professor

Transcripción

[MUSIC] What we'd like to do now is take a minute to debrief and really highlight what we want to avoid when constructing our own resumes. And so remember in the first question, we were looking at a sample resume that was really out of date, and it was out of date in an important way. Avery was submitting this application for a job or internship opportunity starting around January 2016. And so if we look at the resume, what we notice is some really interesting summer activities happening in previous summers. So, for example, in 2012 and 2013 and 2014, but what happened to summer 2015? It's already in the past and if the student was really as qualified as they appear to be from their previous experiences, the expectation of the recruiter looking at this resume is that there would have been some interesting projects happening in summer 2015. Now not only is there a gap in internship experiences or summer experiences, we also notice that later in the resume, when Avery talks about their awards, there's awards mentioned for 2012 and 2013 and 2014, but again what happened to 2015? So this might cause some red flags and those red flags might be confirmed when looking even further at this resume and we notice that 2015 is mentioned. It's mentioned at the bottom and it's mentioned in terms of some leadership experience that Avery undertook. But the concerning part about that is it looks like the resume may have been updated but, perhaps this indicates that there was some trouble in 2015. And this will cause the recruiter to wonder and not in a good way. Now, it could well be that Avery just didn't have a chance to fully update the resume and remembered one activity in 2015, but didn't fill in the rest of the amazing things that he or she did. And the problem with that is that a lack of information can also convey some opinions or information to the recruiter and often not in a good way. And so we really want to make sure that the resume is up to date, and a good, accurate representation of the relative activities that have happened up until now. Okay, so that was the first question. What about in the second question? We asked you to shorten a too-long resume. So this resume had some really impressive accomplishments, but was just way too long. And so here's what we did to shorten it and really condense and highlight the important aspects of the experience of this applicant in just one page. What I'd like you to notice in this resume sample is that we focused on the experience and the education of the applicant, but then really up front and center so that they could shine. We condensed a lot of the description of the education into a few lines. And so we could really make it concise and have the information presented on just that one page. Also notice that for certain awards we could group them together, and so instead of using multiple lines to repeat the name of the award over and over, we could, again, convey the same information much more succinctly. Similarly, things that are too detailed for a resume, maybe a little bit further afield from the job that we're applying for, we could move over to some online space. And so, for example, we move the publications off the resume and on to somewhere that's linked from the resume. So an interesting recruiter or interviewer could then look at those publications but they don't need to all be presented at once, okay? So this was the second question. And then the third question, we highlighted the problems and dangers of over promising, and so let's look at a potentially problematic resume. So if we're looking Avery Able over here, notice that Avery is a first year computer science student, but in their resume he or she says that they've got a bazillion different skills. Look at all of the programming languages that are listed as skills of this applicant. And that's just going to lead to a lot red flags and even worse, it could lead to some questions on the interview that don't highlight Avery's strengths. So, in particular, if we list that we're proficient in a whole lot of different languages on the resume, then each of those languages is fair game for the interview. And so we want to make sure that what we put on the resume is really something that we could speak to and speak to confidently, fluently, and demonstrating our capabilities. On the other hand, we have this other resume by Taylor Techie, who is similarly early on in their education, and very realistically, their skills in terms of distinguishing between languages that they're proficient in from those that they've just begun. And that will not be considered as a mark against you if you're realistic about those skills, especially if the description that you're given for your accomplishments is consistent with the recruiter's expectations for where you ought to be in your current trajectory. And so it's important not to over promise, all right. One more question we had, and this last pair of resumes were about targeting the job. And so what we want to make sure in building a resume is that we think about the position we're applying for. Now for example, if in the skills section we just list all skills that we've learned in part of our work experience or education, then that's not so helpful to the recruiter. It's not clear that you've really thought about what skills are required for the position to which you're applying. The recruiter can, just as well as you, read the catalog of the university at which you're studying, and learn that you've worked through all of these topics. That's not so helpful. What we want to do instead is demonstrate it in this resume, where Avery talks about the specific skills that are going to be relevant for this job. And so this is a lot more focused, and a lot more helpful to the recruiter. So we've had four sample pitfalls, and now it's your turn. What we really encourage you to do is take your own resume and give it that same critical analysis that you've given Taylor's and Avery's. And make sure that it's really dong a great job of representing your experiences, your accomplishments, and how you fit in the particular position to which you're applying.